Call for Papers: Illegal Markets and Their Legal Frontiers, SASE 2027 Mini-Conference at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow [30 June - 3 July 2027; Online Session 16-18 June]

The Global Risk Governance Programme at the Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town, has shared the call for papers for Illegal Markets and Their Legal Frontiers (MC07), a mini-conference at the 2027 annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), the 39th Annual SASE Conference, held at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

The mini-conference is co-organised by Dr Annette Hübschle (Global Risk Governance Programme, University of Cape Town), with Matías Dewey (University of St. Gallen), Meropi Tzanetakis (WU Vienna), Elena Butti (Sciences Po) and Gabriel Feltran (CNRS/Sciences Po). The overall conference theme is Rebuilding Foundations and Hope: Creative Reconstruction in a Moment of Disruption.

Illegal markets do not operate in a separate shadow world. They are woven into informal and legal economies: illicit proceeds become real estate, financial assets, firms, jobs and infrastructure, while legal businesses, banks and public infrastructure often supply the resources that make illegal accumulation possible. The mini-conference asks how the boundaries between legality and illegality are produced, crossed and transformed in practice.

A central question is scale: when does the source of money still matter, and when does it disappear as value moves from local transactions into property portfolios, tax havens and global finance?

• The actors, organisations, technologies and regulations that let value travel between illegal and official economies
• How value is transformed along the way
• The consequences for markets, territories, inequality and political power

Theoretical and empirical contributions across markets, regions and scales are welcome.

The call is open: the organisers welcome theoretical and empirical contributions across markets, regions and scales, and no nationality or affiliation restriction is stated. Co-authored papers are accepted, but no author may present more than two papers, regardless of whether the papers have co-authors, and no paper may be submitted twice to different networks or mini-conferences.

• Submit an abstract of up to 1,000 words, not including references.
• Full papers are recommended but not required before the conference; the full-paper deadline will be communicated by the organisers later.
• Submissions are made through SASE's Oxford Abstracts portal. You will need the paper title, abstract and author information (name, email address, affiliation, country). You can return to your submission and edit it at any time before the deadline.
• SASE asks each attendee to limit their active appearances in the programme (presenting a paper, chairing a session, acting as discussant) to a maximum of three.

In person: 30 June - 3 July 2027 at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Online: 16-18 June 2027 (one virtual session; there are no hybrid sessions on site).

If accepted, all attendees (except featured speakers and prizewinners) must pay SASE membership dues and conference registration fees. SASE lists the 2027 dues and registration fees as TBD. The early bird registration deadline is 8 March 2027 and the final registration deadline is 31 March 2027 (presenters must be registered by this date to be included in the programme).

SASE also lists travel grants for accepted on-site presenters based in countries classified by the World Bank as low, lower-middle or upper-middle income; applicants apply only after their paper is accepted. See the SASE conference page for the current grant terms.

Submit your abstract through the SASE Oxford Abstracts abstract submission portal (create an account if you do not have one), choosing the mini-conference MC07: Illegal Markets and Their Legal Frontiers, by 1 November 2026. Note that the mini-conference deadline (1 November 2026) is earlier than the deadline for SASE networks (16 December 2026).